I just read a very interesting article about the origins of everyone’s favorite wardrobe staple, blue jeans.

Paintings from an anonymous 17th-century Italian artist have just turned up featuring a blue fabric that very much resembles classic blue jeans. This anonymous artist has been dubbed “The Master of the Blue Jeans” for his recurring use of blue jeans in his paintings. The paintings would date the existence of blue jeans as far back as 1655 when the paintings were created.

Before now, there had only been shaky evidence that jeans go back to the mid-17th century. Historians had traced the origins of jeans back to either the French city of Nimes (“de Nimes” becomes “denim”) or Genoa, Italy (“Genoa” is “Genes” in French, which becomes “jeans”). Now there is more concrete proof for the latter.